Promote Your Small Business with Effective Newspaper Advertising
Newspaper advertising can be effective for small businesses. The key to success is taking time to plan instead of just tossing an ad out and crossing your fingers. Newspaper is one ad medium any small business owner, with some basic knowledge, can handle on his or her own.
You'll find many benefits to using newspaper advertising. You can target audiences through different newspaper sections. You can place an ad on short notice if needed. You can easily make changes to ads. Many papers now include your ad on their website for the week as well.
Buy Newspaper Advertising
- Buying newspaper space isn't nearly as complicated as buying radio or TV. Newspaper advertising is sold in column inches. Multiply how many columns wide the ad is by the number of inches high. For example, an ad 3 columns wide by 6 inches high would be an 18-inch ad. Ask the newspaper rep for a rate card. This will give you a wealth of information, including ad sizes (in inches and picas, a typical newspaper measurement) and any special sections scheduled for the year.
- Get volume discounts if you commit to place a certain number of column inches over the year. This is where your marketing plan is helpful. If you planned two newspaper ads the second week of each month for the year, you'll have a pretty good idea of the volume of column inches you should buy. You're just buying the space and not committing to run it on a given day. Even when you place newspaper advertising, you can still cancel and reschedule it up to a certain deadline before the paper goes to print.
- Since you're buying the newspaper space yourself, instead of employing a professional media buyer, ask for an "in-house agency" discount. That means your cost is discounted the amount a media buyer would typically receive for placing the same ads.
- Ask the newspaper rep to provide readership numbers for different days of the week. You'll need to determine your own strategy. Some advertisers like advertising on Sunday and Wednesday. Because of the many ads, more people buy the newspaper on those days. Others avoid those days, believing their ad gets lost among all the others.
- One approach to consider is running your ad on Sunday and a "pick-up" ad during the week. If you run the exact same ad during the week, you'll get a discounted rate. You can hit the higher readership Sunday and run another day during the week when the paper is less cluttered with ads.
Write Your Newspaper Ad Copy
Your newspaper ad should have four basic parts: the headline, the support copy, the call to action and your company name and contact information.
- Visually, your headline is more important than the body or support copy. It has a tough job, because it must capture attention, tie into the rest of the ad and coordinate with any graphics. In a word, phrase or sentence, it must say something about a product benefit that appeals to your audience and motivate them to read on.
- To quickly grab the reader, your headline must be short and simple. I usually try to limit newspaper ad headlines to no more than six words.
- After the headline, the support copy builds on the headline. It explains the benefits of your product in a bit more detail, without being too wordy. Bullets work well to list benefits. Emphasize the benefit to the customer by using "you" instead of "we."
- Following the body copy, end with a call to action. Do you want the reader to call, come in or visit your web site? Ask readers to act and provide some motivation. The motivation may be a free gift, a free trial, a free estimate or a discount. If you offer a discount, make it enough to get people to act. Print an ending date to create a sense of urgency. When a person comes in for the discount, strive to cross-sell additional merchandise or services. Also, make certain to get contact information to help build future sales.
- Make it easy for the reader to follow through with a purchasing decision. At the bottom of the ad, include locations with address, phone number, web site address and email.
- Don't cram your newspaper advertising full of too much information. Write enough to support your message, but leave some white space. When any marketing piece is too cluttered, few people take the time to read it. People are busy. They want easy-to-read ads.
Create Your Newspaper Advertising
- The ad department at the newspaper can produce your ad. You can also hire a freelance writer/designer or a graphic design student. Whoever does your ad, don't just turn them loose without direction. Sketch out a rough design for them. Show them copies of other ads you like. If you've built a consistent advertising look for your business, give them examples of other ads. Stay involved in the process and allow ample time for revisions to get it just right.
- Don't make your ad too small. This is one mistake I see with many small businesses. They place multiple business-card-sized ads, with no photos or graphics and mediocre copy. These small ads get lost among all the other ads. Usually, a more effective approach is to run one or two larger ads instead of more frequent smaller ads. When you run a larger ad, it doesn't get lost, and it gives you room to use an eye-catching headline, graphic or white space to your benefit.
- Your ad may or may not have a photo or graphic. A good visual should convey the ad's message to the reader. It should tie in with the headline and the support copy. Don't make the mistake of thinking you have to include a visual though. No photo or graphic is better than a bad one.
- Always, always include your company logo prominently in the ad.
You should now be prepared to create and place newspaper advertising. No longer will you call a newspaper rep, quickly hand him a business card for reprint and cross your fingers. Instead, with a little time and effort, you'll enjoy the maximum benefit of your newspaper advertising.
